It's hot!

Here in good ol' Estacada, it doesn't get hot very often. Hot for us is like anything above 85. Today, the day of our garage sale, it was around 95. Who wants to go out and shop in that kind of heat?! Not me. Nevertheless, Brenan and I have spent hours upon hours outside trying to find solace in the shade. Then, there was poor, poor Walter who voluntarily chose to hang outside with us all day. The poor pup spent all day napping under my chair, chasing bees, and smelling flowers. He had it real tough. The good news is that the squirt bottle training is paying off and he has gotten a lot better about not barking at people as they walk by. For our own entertainment, and at no discomfort to us (fortunately) the power in downtown Estacada got knocked out. Grocery stores, drug stores, movie stores, and probably the worst- Sparky's Pizza- all without power. Luckily for us, Sparky's ovens aren't run on electricity, so they could still make us pizza. Unluckily for them, their air conditioner and fans couldn't be turned on due to said power failure, so they were baking in there just as quickly as their pizzas. Then I realized that hot pizza on a hot day wasn't exactly what hit the spot. I could have gone for something more like popsicles in a pool to keep me cool. No, I did NOT try to rhyme. Hopefully it will cool down in the next hour-or-so so that we can go down and enjoy the Summer Celebration downtown.

Here is Walter eating the flowers.

Yummy food

So since we haven't been getting our meals from The Ranger Grill everyday anymore, we have started cooking for ourselves again (for like the first time in 5 months). This brought me back to some of our favorite recipes:

• Cheesy chicken enchiladas: http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/our-perfect-zesty-chicken-62841.aspx Now, I think it's kinda gross to put Miracle Whip in my food, so I substitute it with cream of chicken and a dollop of sour cream. I also cut the recipe in half since the two of us can't eat 16 enchiladas. Much more better (poor English here is attributed to Jack Sparrow, not me).


• Beef Stroganoff: One can cream of mushroom, one can milk, 1/3 cup sour cream- mix in pan and add mushrooms if desired. For you noodles, I highly recommend wide egg noodles. Boil them and add 'em in (or pour the sauce over them...your choice). For the meat, I recommend Swedish Meatballs from IKEA. Yum :) However, ground beef, strip steak, or grocery store meatballs work. We tried Philly steak in it...no bueno.

The Beach

We decided to go to the beach today! It was Brenan and Walter's first time to the Oregon coast. We spent most of the day in Seaside, then we drove through Astoria (where Goonies was filmed!). We dragged Alex along, what a champ, and he was our camera man today :)

The clouds were colliding with the mountains. It was pretty cool looking.

Bikefest 2009 was today. There were HUNDREDS of motorcycles throughout the entire town!

The best part of the day: elephant ears, saltwater taffy, and the water not being freezing cold (surprisingly). Also, we found the coolest dog store ever! They have really unique clothes, toys, and treats for dogs. We bought Walter some dog treats that he is going CRAZY for! If I can remember the name, I'll post it.

A Fun Friday

It's been really hot this week, and since my parents are gone, it's been up to us kids to clean the house and start packing. Because it's been so hot, we have been...procrastinating, to say the least. So, around noon I decided to take Walter for a walk. First, I saw the cutest little girl (2? 3?) playing in her pool as her mom dumped water on her :) Then I come home to find this:

Alex playing an accordion. What a goof. Then, the boys were hungry and it was decided that I would make lunch and they would clean...aka play xbox. We did have some yummy homemade fries and some oh so spicy wings. Too spicy. We all realized at about the same point that they were ridiculously hot, and Brenan comes running in the kitchen looking for relief. After cooling down our mouths, we were bored yet again. Still too hot to clean. So, for some cheap harmless entertainment, we fed the chicken wings (minus the bones, we're not that dumb) to the dog. Apparently he likes spicy food because none of us could handle it. Then after our cheap shenanigans it was time for a nap.

The cuteness came and fell asleep on my legs. After a whole lot more of doing nothing, somehow Walter was still tired, so we had a sleepy photo shoot.

Sleepy time she comes.

And as you can notice, our dog is more human than most dogs. He doesn't sleep with his legs under him like most dogs. He stretches out completely like a human does. He also cuddles and likes to be held.

Eventually he caught on to us and the photo shoot was over. Then we realized that after all of our doing nothing made us hungry again. Odd. Cue in Sparky's Pizza! The best pizza in the area, and definitely on our top 5 pizza places :) Tie it up with Man of the Year and you have successfully wrapped another day of 3 loads of laundry and relaxing.

Walter

Here is Walter, our curious dog. He is free entertainment that lasts FOREVER. He never stops running, but he's so cute and wrinkly, you just wanna kiss him all the time!

(I'm not sure what he's doing in this flower bush...)

This is Walter behind the wheel. He is a pretty good sport about going on trips in the car with us. We got him the bandana for 4th of July, and Dozer has a matching red one.

Peoples & movies

Brenan and I were really excited today to go see Harry Potter 6. We decided to go to an early showing (12:20 pm) to avoid the crowds since we like to talk during movies. Mind you, we didn't really add in to our plans that it was the first day that the movie was out. So, we get there and get our soda and Mike & Ike's (Brenan's favorite) and proceed into the theater... It's packed ! Luckily we find two seats right in the middle not too close to the screen, and low and behold, Brenan's seat is broken-ish. But it's ok, we've got our candy and soda and it's going to be great. As the movie plays, we realize that we're surrounded by tons of little little kids and old ladies that have never read the books. So what do we hear the ENTIRE time?? Kids talking, asking questions to their parents who have NEVER READ THE BOOKS! Then, they're kicking Brenan's chair, running around, blowing bubbles in their drinks, and to top it off, the 2 old ladies next to me keep pulling more and more food out of their oversized purses (bumping me each time) and asking each other questions about movie (that neither knows the answers to)! Will it never stop? No, it won't, because all of these kids only came with 1 adult. 5:1 ratio in a movie theater is not a good combination. So, if this wasn't enough, the movie last nearly 3 hours! We will wait to watch it again when it comes out on DVD to see if we like it any more the second time around. But, today's experience left us with a 5.5/10.

Lesson learned.